


The Lovers in the Photograph Have Gone

by Mitsuhachi



Category: Silent Hill, Star Trek (2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-04-21
Updated: 2011-09-30
Packaged: 2017-10-18 11:03:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mitsuhachi/pseuds/Mitsuhachi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt: Sarek gets a transmission from Amanda saying she's alive, but confused and lost and needs him to come get her out of here. He ends up in a strange little town called Silent Hill. C'mon, don't pretend this isn't awesome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A couple of warnings:  
> 1\. This is a WIP. I do intend to write more, but it may not (probably won't) be quickly.
> 
> 2\. This has massive spoilers for both Silent Hill 2 and STXI.

He's in the middle of a conference when the transmission arrives; the Denobulan Ambassador has just begun a very important presentation on the economic effects of their latest treaty, and he almost ignores it except that when he glances down at the little flashing notice on his pad, the name tagged to the entry reads "Lady Amanda Grayson."

For a long moment, it's as though all the air in the room has bled away into space--the sound distorts and then dies, and he cannot make himself draw breath.

"Husband," it reads. "Help me. I am alive, but wounded and lost. The town I am in calls itself Silent Hill, but I cannot tell you co-ordinates, or even which of the old countries I'm in. Somewhere near the Atlantic, on Earth's North American continent. I don't even know if this transmission will reach you, my padd and communicator are both dead. This place is... it's strange, Sarek. ...I don't know if I even want you to come. It's dangerous. I'm afraid, love. Please--"

He hits the scroll button several times in a row (illogical, he knew)but the message seemed to have been cut off there. It was--Amanda had been dead for over six months, lost with everything else he'd ever called home. This message had to be some sort of tasteless prank. The message had, after all, been confined to text--no video or audio to recognize her, to be sure. And yet...if there was even a chance that it was true...

Sarek was up from his delegation-seat and ordering his shuttle ready before the others could even question where he was going.

Reverse-tracking the originating point of the transmission is unaccountably difficult. A subspace frequency-tag that should have yielded a location as precise as a city-block radius with the correct access codes could give him no more than a likelihood that his wife had been somewhere in the region of what used to be Maine. Which is how he found himself seated in the lobby of a ten-man police station that most likely qualified as a Location of Historic Interest due to Antiquity, arguing with the chief of police for the municipality of Brahms, NACS.

"Listen, Mr. Um. Sarek? Seriously, is that your first name or your last or what?" Sarek breathed evenly, reminding himself again of the need for patience and tolerence of difference as the man half-turned to his underling to complain under his voice about 'damn weird-o aliens', and declined to reply. "Uh, well--whatever I guess. I told you already: I can't give you the location--it's a restricted area, we don't allow tourism or whatever you said you were doing. So just head on home, wherever you guys are calling that these days."

It was so unnecessary a comment, under the circumstances, that Sarek resolved to engage with this regrettable individual no longer. "Sir. According with the regional laws of your North American Collective State, the Unified Earth Organization, and the Federation, as well as the standing diplomatic agreements between the respective governments of Earth and Vulcan, given my status as the Chief Ambassador to Earth, you are required to co-operate with my investigation. You will disclose the location of the town called Silent Hill--"the chief of Police opened his mouth as though to interrupt, but Sarek only raised his voice slightly and continued, "--which you have already admitted exists somewhere in this region--and you will provide me with whatever maps, criminal information, or other relevant data you might possess, as well as the name and contact information for your nearest counterpart in the town itself. Should you refuse, I will report your actions to the appropriate authorities and obtain the information anyway from your replacement. Is that understood?"

The man's eyes had gone wide and dark, his face ashen. Sarek considered the possiblity that some echo of unsuppressed frustration may have made itself known as he'd explained the situation to this really rather dim-witted man, and was aware that he did not particularly care. "You really want...Oh gods-be-fucking-dammit."

Although he'd apparently lost what little ability he'd had to form coherent sentences in his fright, the man was at least now downloading something to a file, directing a Mr. Coulton to retrieve the rest from 'the damned paper-vault'. When Sarek looked up from perusing the new data being transmitted to his padd, the man was actually holding out to him a stack of real paper, so old they were flaking around the edges: a map of the original town (the new town having been built apparently over the remains of the previous after it had burned to the ground sometime in the early 20th century. Sarek had no idea why the man would think he'd find this useful, but took it anyway), a crumbling set of bizarre police reports, and a paper on the rituals and sigils of a set of ancient Earth religious cults. It was, all told, an utterly bewildering set of data, and he found his hand resting on the half-piece of his (mostly-legal) Starfleet phaser with something a human might consider nervousness.

"Now go. Get out. Don't come back. And don't say I didn't fucking warn you."

The town in question was no more than 'an hour or so' by hoverbike, set back from the main highway by a stretch of pine barrens shrouded in thick Terran fog. When he'd come to what he estimated must be near the edge of town, he dismounted, decided to walk the bike the last .93 (+- .4) miles since the visibility had grown dangerously low. The sense of alien-ness grew: Vulcan's atmosphere was not water-dense enough to ever allow for the phenomenon humans called 'fog', and Sarek found the sea of freezing water-droplets seemingly suspended weightlessly all around him disorienting in the extreme. Sounds seemed to echo strangely: Terran birds he could not identify creeled in the distance; the passage of animals or distant traffic distorted until they sounded like the mumblings of sentient voices; his own footsteps doubling back to him until he could swear he was being followed.

When he saw the boy kneeling beside the road at what seemed to be some manner of stone memorial-marker, it was a distinct relief to see another living form. The child was, as far as Sarek could tell, somewhere between nine and twelve Earth-years of age, all dirty blond hair and bruised-looking but shockingly blue eyes.

"Excuse me," Sarek walked over to the boy, attempting to gentle his voice as the child startled. "May I enquire as to whether this is the correct direction to proceed if one wishes to arrive at the town of Silent Hill?"

The child seemed to take a moment to parse that. "Um. Yeah, it's a little hard to see with all this fog, but there's only the one road..."

Sarek nodded, relaxing his facial muscles in a way that he seemed to recall Spock finding reassuring at a similar point in his development. "You have my thanks."

The child stood, seeming to gather his courage, before looking up at Sarek. "I think you'd better stay away though. This uh... this town..." The child figeted, rocking back and forth on his heels in an oddly rhythmic way. "There's something... wrong with it. It's kind of hard to explain, but..."

Again, Sarek nodded. It was no more than he'd been given to expect. "It's dangerous?" he prompted.

"Maybe...but it's not just the fog either, its--" the child stopped, looking over his shoulder for a long moment at nothing Sarek could see before turning back to staring at Sarek. He seemed disinclined to finish his statement; afraid.

"I understand," he said, trying to remember the way that Amanda had spoken to Spock when their child had been frightened. He'd always been so disapproving of what he saw as her encouraging the boy's emotionalism that he wasn't sure he'd ever made a note of her actual methods; he found he bitterly regretted it. "I will exercise the utmost caution. But I must enter the town, as my wife--my Bonded--may be there and in need of aid. I cannot let the possibility go unanswered, regardless of the danger."

Inexplicably, the child brightened. "You're lookin' for somebody important to you?" The shy smile the child displayed was...gratifying, somehow. "Me too. I'm lookin' for my Daddy. Not Frank, you know--My real Daddy. I thought my mom and big brother might be here too, but they left me and I can't find them. I--" But just that quickly, the child seemed to shut down. "I'm sorry, it's not your problem. I shouldn't bother you with it."

The child's look of pain--some emotional pain Sarek had never learned to categorize, though he'd seen it once or twice on Amanda's face, in the first years of her residence on Vulcan--pulled at Sarek, and he found himself saying, "No. I find it...quite acceptable, that you should disclose such things to me. It is my sincere hope that your search is fruitful."

The child smiled, though it seemed to Sarek that some sense of the former distress was still in evidence. "Yeah, you too." Raising one hand in a solemn ta'al, Sarek turned and walked further into the fog.

At the city limits, the fog began to clear. Looking over the town, Sarek couldn't understand the fear with which the local humans seemed to regard it; Silent Hill could have been any small town, anywhere on Terra. People walked along the sidewalks, peered into the windows of shops and businesses, paused to chat. It was altogether other than what he had been given to expect, and he found himself unaccountably distrustful of the peaceful scene.

Sarek caught sight of the sole law-officer for the town, a Mr. Kennismic according to the information on his padd, leaning against a light-pole chatting with an older man. "Excuse me, Officer. I'm looking for a Terran woman, forty-three point three four earth years of age." Sarek produced the embassy-identification holo that was his only remaining image of his wife. "I have reason to believe she may be in this town. Can you help me?"

Sarek wasn't prepared to see the man look over at him and frown, eyes lingering on his brows and ears--though it occurred to him that in so rural an environment, he should not be surprised at such a reception. The man's question, though, was even more bewildering: "You were called here?"

"Affirmative." Sarek reminded himself not to give in to vulgar displays of emotional frustration. "As I explained, I am searching for a woman who is known as Amanda Grayson. Are you unable or unwilling to render me ai--" But the man had drawn and fired his phaser before Sarek could even finish.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First monster encounter through the Apartments.

The pain in Sarek's head on awakening was sharp, but not beyond his ability to suppress. Night had fallen, perhaps, while he'd apparently been left to lay unconscious on the sidewalk; the town seemed...dingier, by streetlight. Buildings that had been clean and welcoming that afternoon hunched over the road, dripping peeling flakes of paint and dirt. The streets looked completely empty of people, though the thick fog had returned, obscuring anything farther than 10.56 feet away, even to keen Vulcan eyes.

  
Sarek stood slowly, waiting for the slight wooziness to clear from his head. Slowly he became aware that his padd was emitting an odd, static-y sound. "Sa-...re y...? Ple--- !! ...oming, you have t- ...ve you, please..." He would not have seen the figures on the far side of the old-fashioned chain-link fence at all if he'd not turned his head to peer questioningly at the padd; a figure without arms or any facial features Sarek could make out--badly burned?--was pinned beneath a larger figure, a powerful masculine form with an enormous rust-iron helm, that was slowly tearing the skin from the struggling figure beneath it as it thrust.

  
His first impulse was to attempt to help the…person? Except that it clearly was not. _Monster_ , his brain supplied. He recognized the emotion of fear, breathed out slowly and set it aside. He would need to meditate, soon; there had not seemed to be time, since receiving Amanda’s message. His padd’s continued bursts of static—a sound the technology should have had no legitimate reason to produce—was rendering his emotional suppression rather more difficult than the norm. Footsteps sounded behind him; Sarek turned to see a vaguely humanoid figure coming towards him through the fog. Behind him, the sound of wet tearing echoed obscenely.

 

It seemed to be a figure like the other—Sarek almost wanted to turn and confirm it was not in fact the same individual, because surely such horrors could not have been inflicted on multiple persons? But it was staggering out of the mist towards him in a way Sarek found distinctly unsettling, and it did not seem prudent to look away. Again, Sarek breathed.

 

“Are you in need of medical assis—“ A gaping wound flapped open in the middle of the creature’s chest from which sprayed a fine mist of a substance (possibly hydrocholoric acid?) that made his skin burn. Luckily, the surprise had made him automatically shut his inner eyelids, but the sensation was severely uncomfortable nevertheless. He drew his phaser. “I do not wish to cause you harm; please desist from your assault on my per—“ Another spray of the liquid came and Sarek felt his throat begin to close, coughing and choking around the burning in the tissue of his throat. His phaser was set to stun; Sarek fired, and the creature failed utterly to drop. Unknown elements of its physiology must be complicating the phaser’s neural interference, he thought. Again, the fleshy opening began to spread. Sarek felt his jaw tightening, flipped the setting on his phaser to ‘kill’ with his thumb and brought the phaser up to aim.

 

This time, the creature fell. It lay twitching in front of him on the pavement, red blood pooling beneath it, only slowly dissolving after a long moment. Sarek took a moment to steady his hands, staring at the blood. What had the creature been? No humanoid species he knew of presented such characteristics; even a badly mutilated humanoid surely could not survive long in such a state… But, no. This was not a productive line of inquiry. He set it firmly aside.

 

Sarek used the corner of his over-tunic to carefully wipe the remaining acid from his skin, attempting not to irritate the burns more than necessary. He was…not certain where he might even begin to look for Amanda. Even being here, he admitted to himself, was not strictly logical.

 

The chain of the fence behind him made a sound, and Sarek turned, braced for a new attack. The monsters which had previously occupied the dingy alleyway were gone, not even the blood which had been abundantly spilling the last time he’d had occasion to observe that location now present. Instead, Jimmy was standing there, fingers curled in one of the crossings of the chain. Sarek felt a stirring of concern; the child was not defended in any way that he could see, and this… place was manifestly unsafe. But Jimmy was not displaying any of the human fear-markers that Sarek had learned. He opened his mouth to speak, but Jimmy only shook his head, pushed his fist with some difficulty through an opening in the fence to hold out a tarnished brass key.

  
Sarek blinked, reached out to take the key more from blank habit than true volition. Jimmy grinned, and Sarek found himself looking down at what he held. It was not large, though very damaged: it looked like someone had left it in the rain for some time, and “Apartment Key” was scratched into the top of it. Sarek looked up again, intending to suggest that the boy stay with him, or at least to provide the child some means of self-defense, but Sarek could just see the back of his dirty tee-shirt disappearing into the darkness at the back of the alley. He allowed himself a distinct frown, and then turned to go. An apartment building seemed as legitimate a place to start his search as any.

 

***

 

The apartment building should have been condemned. Sarek found that he thought very poorly of whatever city planner allowed sentient beings to live in such a place. Windows were broken, and the wooden exterior was rotting out of shape. The door was rusted so badly that he was not at all convinced a human would have been able to open it, key or no. And the inside was even worse: the walls were mottled with dirt and the exotic patterns of water damage, flakes of peeled paint making each of his steps sound of tiny cracks. Such places were not allowed to exist on Vulcan, he thought, stepping inside. They would—Sarek stopped. Such places _had not_ been allowed to exist on Vulcan, he corrected himself.

 

He stood, staring at the rust-brown stains on the carpet for some 31.6 seconds, and would likely have continued if the sounds of struggle and high-pitched screaming on one of the floors above had not suddenly interrupted. One of the voices had sounded feminine, and he had barely processed the thought before he was racing up the stairs. Doors came off their hinges in his hands, and he couldn’t bring himself to care about the property damage he knew he was inflicting, pushed himself rather to go even faster, because if he were only in time to save her, this time—if his reflexes had been quicker, if he could reach, then—

 

One of the doors opened into a living room, and when he saw the ravaged corpse sitting on the threadbare couch, his throat closed. For long seconds, all he could see was the soft brown of her hair, the delicate hands… but no. This woman was young, brown-skinned and painted in a way Amanda never bothered with. He took a rough breath and made himself still, whisper the Vulcan words of respect for the dead. He would have liked to bury her, if there had been time. But the living—or, he supposed, the potentially-living—took precedence.

 

Gingerly, he pulled the door closed, wedged it as best he could against the monsters, though he didn’t know whether they would even react to the corpse. He briefly considered the value of a study, but again, there was not the time. Walking down the hallway this time, he held himself to a steady pace, methodically checking each room before moving on. Several times he walked into a room, or back into the hallway and caught the skittering of vaguely humanoid shapes, ducking around corners or disappearing into shadows. He thought, once or twice, of giving chase, but they were always gone before he could do more than consider it, nothing but a continuously lurking threat he could neither escape nor confront.

 

On the building’s top floor, he found another corpse—male this time, which initiated a completely inappropriate rush of relief he had to consciously suppress. The human male had been hacked at with some sort of semi-blunt instrument, was lolling half shoved inside the open refrigerating unit, and Sarek had to swallow back bile at the stench before he could bring himself to lift it free. At the very least he could lay the body out respectfully—what kind of people _were_ these? Even at their most barbaric, Vulcans had not defiled the dead in this manner. The thought of his Amanda among people such as these made the rage almost impossible to master.

 

A choking sound coming from deeper in the apartment allowed him to focus on the present circumstances. Cautiously, he approached a door to what appeared to be a primitive fresher, rust stains running down from an actual water shower. A man was hunched over the sink, pale and sweating. He gave every impression of having just been sick. He was tall, taller than Sarek himself, and dark hair curled down his nape, longer than most Vulcans would have worn it…but then the man looked up to meet Sarek’s eyes in the mirror and he had to swallow a gasp. No Vulcan, this—Romulan.

 

“Who are you?” the man bit out in fairly passable Standard. He drew himself up into a straight military posture and glared. Sarek felt nothing, nothing, looking at him, except for a kind of very cold, empty contempt.

 

“Sarek, son of Skon, of Vulcan-that-was,” he answers, and his voice is utterly inflectionless. The Romulan flinches, slightly, and tried to cover it with a sneer. “And you, cousin?”

 

“I am not required to share my name with cowardly dogs,” the Romulan spits. His posture is leaning forward, subtly attempting to goad him into aggression, mourning runes stark across his face. Sarek is unmoved.

 

“And, I suppose you are the one who murdered the humans in this building, leaving them dishonored and without rites?” Amanda had had no funerary rites. There had been no body over which to say them. Sarek focused on the moment.

 

The Romulan paled at the accusation though, and Sarek suddenly noticed that he was very young, likely not even as old as Spock, who was not yet adult. “I…I did not…” he began, face twisting as though anger might obscure his confusion. “You, and they, are monsters, not fit to die as slaves beneath Romulan boots. Those who have no honor cannot have honor taken from them,” he finally snarled.

 

Sarek merely stood, quiet. The boy-soldier reeked of fear, shoulders back like he was begging Sarek to give him an excuse to attack, something real and understandable to fight. Sarek understood the impulse, but that didn’t mean he was going to indulge it.

 

“It would be best if you left this town—this quadrant, really—as soon as you can,” he said, finally. “Else, the monsters will kill you, and none will regret your death.” The Romulan stared at him from the mirror, saying nothing, and so Sarek turned to go.

  
“Ôrĕn,” came the call from behind him just before he passed the door. “My name is Ôrĕn, cousin.” The Romulan let the words drop from his mouth as though they were blades, each one inflicting a new small hurt and Sarek nodded. Without turning, he walked through the door and out of the building.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pyramid-head take 2 through the false Amanda.

One of the doors downstairs—to a room he was fairly certain he’d checked earlier, given the way the door was hanging drunkenly from one hinge—now opened onto a different kind of room from the others, almost entirely empty save for the dingy carpeting and a tarnished mirror running the length of the far wall. On the floor, a young man lay sprawled with a bottle of foul smelling whiskey in one hand and an incongruously normal-looking kitchen knife in the other.

 

 “Oh,” he said. “It’s you.”

 

Sarek looked more closely at the man—he almost resembled Spock’s captain, or else that child, though Sarek reminded himself that blond hair and blue eyes were not so uncommon on Earth as they were-- _had been_ \--on Vulcan. There was too much dirt and blood smeared across the man’s face to tell whether they might be related. “Yes,” he answered finally. “I am Sarek.”

 

The man let out a hollow laugh and sat up on his elbows, just far enough to drink directly from his bottle. He appeared extremely, extremely inebriated, and Sarek spared a moment to be concerned about alcohol poisoning. “Do you think it entirely wise to continue consuming intoxicants in this manner?” he found himself asking, aware that it was truly none of his concern. “I believe this course of action may be damaging to you.”

 

That prompted another laugh, and the man pushed himself up the rest of the way, blearily squinting in Sarek’s direction as though he could not quite get his eyes to focus. “’re you kiddin me?” he slurred. “Mister, you sh’be drinkin too.” But the man’s eyes were entirely too shrewd, somehow, for someone who was likely seeing two of him. “You’re the same as me. I can tell.” He gestured with the bottle towards Sarek, spilling some of the liquid inside onto his tee-shirt. “’s easier jus’ to run, right? And besides. It’s what we deserve. Sh’ try it: drink til y’can’t think n then fin’ someone t’hit you til you don’t hurt ‘nymore. S’great.” He was tapping the edge of the knife against his bare arm idly as he spoke.

 

Sarek frowned, took a moment to parse that, and then: “I do not believe that to be an advisable course of action,” he said firmly.

 

“Suit y’rself,” the man shrugged, sprawling with the knife held loosely against his thigh. “So, didja find ‘er?”  Sarek hesitated. “Th’girl,” he was prompted, and Sarek could only assume that this man must indeed know the child, Jimmy.

 

“Not as of yet,” Sarek temporized, calling up the embassy-identification photo on his padd. He crouched down, holding out the padd so that the man could see it. “This is she who was my wife,” he commented. “Her name is Amanda.” The man only stared at the screen blearily for a moment, then mutters an apology. Sarek reminded himself that lies of omission were also lies, and then explained, “In truth, there is strong reason to believe that she died with my planet. I am…not entirely sure why I came, save that, if there were even a small chance that somehow she is indeed here and in need of assistance, I could not fail her.” Again, he added silently.

 

The young man was looking at him with eyes far too old for so young a face. “My dad’s dead,” he told Sarek, as though imparting a great secret. Sarek was not unused to the conversational leaps humans employ so frequently, but this comment throws him entirely.

 

“I grieve with thee,” he said finally, and only felt the rightness of it afterward. The man nodded to himself as though Sarek had made some actual answer, and got unsteadily to his feet.

 

“Okay. You win; I’mma go look for my dad, and you” he used the knife to gesture sternly at Sarek.  “Find your Amanda.” He took one step, then wobbled alarmingly and nearly sliced open his side attempting to catch himself. Sarek arched an eyebrow.

 

“And that?” he asked, looking pointedly at the blade. It was difficult to tell past the alcohol-flush, but the young man seemed to blush at that.

 

“Uh…would you, maybe, hold it for me?” Sarek raised the eyebrow further at the odd request, but nodded nevertheless. “If I kept it, I’m not sure what I would do…” the man murmured. 

 

Sarek folded his hands into his robe, putting on the blank expression which had always caused Spock to behave himself. “And the intoxicant as well, I think,” he pushed. The man scowled at him, but handed over both of the items, and they both pretended not to notice the way he couldn’t help but cringe, slightly, when Sarek held out his hand to receive them. His eyes were still a bit wide, and Sarek very deliberately did not move as the man backed away from him, not turning his back until well out the door.

 

He let out a breath, gave a somewhat wistful look at the alcohol—-not that it had remotely the same effect on Vulcan physiology, but as Amanda had often told him, “the thought was there”—-and then poured it all out of the window.

 

By the time he went back out into the front lobby, there was no sign of the man. Sarek paused a moment to rest, incredibly tired suddenly—he glanced at his padd and nodded. He’d been here seven hours already, and traveled for quite some time before that. He wondered briefly whether he might sit for a moment, and then became aware of an odd squelching sound in the back of the lobby.

 

Sarek winced, and then forced himself to turn and look, because lack of information had never improved a situation.

 

It was the creature from before, with the absurdly over-sized helmet. Behind it, it dragged a struggling, vaguely female figure that had no features, but instead two spikes of bone rising from her forehead, an obscene parody of the diadems of highborn Vulcan women. From the place where they pierced her skin, blood oozed in rivulets down the shape of her face like red tears, and strips of torn skin hung from her torso like a gruesome court-robe. She was struggling, flailing in a way that suggested subtly non-humanoid bone structure, and the man in the pyramid helm hefted the leg he was dragging her by higher over his shoulder, wearing her draped over his front. The way her struggles pushed her against his body made Sarek want to be sick, and he crouched lower into the shadows trying to remain unseen. As he watched, the man stilled, seemed to reach some kind of satisfaction and gave up the pretense at fighting he’d been indulging in previously. It held the female figure’s ankle and pulled; the snap of bone and ligament echoed in the empty room as her leg came entirely away from her body. She arched her back in pain, though she made no sound, and he flung what remained of the slowly bleeding body to the floor.

 

It turned and walked, slow and inexorable, towards the side of the lobby where Sarek was hiding, bending briefly to take up a knife nearly as tall as he was, that screeched hideously where he dragged it across the floor. He crossed past the place where Sarek crouched, and for 3.235 seconds, Sarek almost thought he would pass unnoticed. But the man stopped. For a moment, neither of them moved, and then the helmet-man turned and raised his knife. Sarek had dodged before he fully realized what had happened, years of practicing Suus-Mahna tucking him into the roll out of pure muscle memory. When he came up, he turned, looking for the monster, but it made no attempt to hide. It walked towards him, as slowly as it had before, and Sarek used the time during its approach to bring up his phaser and aim. Once, twice he pulled the trigger, and he knew the unit was set to full power, and yet the creature showed no reaction, as though the particle-stream did not even affect it. A pulse of true fear went through Sarek, and then the thing was swinging the gigantic knife at him again, and all he could do was dodge. He ran, tucked himself against a far wall, and as he’d guessed, the creature stalked towards him once more.

 

Sarek looked around the room, taking stock of his surroundings as he had been taught. If there could be no offense against this being, then no amount of temporary defense would suffice to end this encounter—eventually, he would make some mistake, and he would die. The man in the pyramid-helm had gotten close; Sarek ducked over to the far wall, breathed slow from the bottom of his belly, and thought. If he could neither attack nor defend, then flight seemed his only option. It was possible that he might find some way to foil the creature’s pursuit, once in the open of the streets instead of this enclosed space. If he could get to the door…

 

But he’d let the monster get too close this time; the knife came crashing towards him and he just barely escaped being split in two. His sleeve tore completely off of his tunic, and there was a large scrape spilling green onto the remaining fabric. The creature raised its arm, preparing for another attack, and this time Sarek ducked _in_ and under it, pushing himself into a full run, tumbling through the door to the sounds of sirens. Oddly, he did not hear the sounds of pursuit, but he kept running for several blocks, ducking down side streets more or less at random.

 

 Unfortunately, this had the consequence of leaving him quite lost when he finally accepted his escape and stopped to lean against a brick wall and pant. That… was not quite so easy as it once had been, he reflected, looking around. The building he was leaning against faced a large grassy clearing overlooking a muddy brown lake. Sarek walked across the grass, and part of his mind—as every time he saw such large bodies of water, alien and beautiful—admired the strangeness of it. He found his eyes scanning the park without knowing what he was looking for; it was the same carpet of half-dead grass, concrete walking paths, and wooden benches that every terran town seemed to require, so that when he saw her, he was so distracted by the feeling that he almost walked right past the woman. Then she turned, and all of Sarek’s breath caught in his throat.

 

“Amanda,” he breathed, and could not even begin to categorize the multitude of trembling emotions in the word.

 

Except for the strange fact that his ashaya, rather than running towards him with one of the full-body hugs that had so embarrassed him early in their courtship (an impulse she typically restrained for his sake, though she’d never fully lost the habit) was instead merely staring at him, expressionless save for the arch of one inquiring eyebrow.

 

“Na’shaya,” the woman said, raising her hand in a reserved ta’al, and Sarek felt something in his chest clench at the formality. _Na’shaya_ , she’d said, not nashaut, which Amanda had told him with a shockingly joyful expression each day when he returned to their home. Sarek held up his hand as well and tried to clear his throat. The woman tucked her softly curled brown hair behind an elegantly pointed ear and looked at him.

 

“My apologies, madam,” he managed presently. “It appears I had mistaken you for another.” And there it was again, the liquid weight of grief, choking him. “The resemblance is quite…remarkable.”

 

The woman dropped her questioning look, face a perfect blank. Sarek swallowed back the sudden urge to scream and destroy something. “There is no offense,” she said, sounding utterly indifferent even though her voice had just the same tones as Amanda. “I am called T’amana.”

 

With some difficulty, Sarek forced himself to accept the apparent reality of the woman before him, set aside the wild impulse to shake her and beg her to remember. This was, quite plainly, not his Amanda. “I see,” he said, making himself meet her even gaze. “ I am Sarek. I am attempting to locate an individual—“

 

“A human?” T’amana asked, managing to sound disdainful without actually having any inflection in her voice.

 

“My bondmate,” he replied, and couldn’t entirely keep the weariness that crashed over him then out of his voice. “She is called Amanda.” Once again he went through the ritual of calling up her photograph, holding it over. “Have you encountered her?”

 

T’amana had a mild look of faint surprise. “The resemblance is indeed striking,” she said, “but no. I have no knowledge of this individual.” Sarek swallowed, nodded, and when she said nothing more he turned to walk away. To his surprise, however, T’amana elected to follow him, and he paused to look back at her.

 

“You intend to accompany me?” he inquired.

 

T’amana nodded, regal and slow. “You are armed, and clearly trained to ably defend yourself,” She glances at the raw scrape on his arm, already starting to scab over. “which I am not. It is not logical for me to attempt as a single ill-equipped individual to survive another encounter with the…inhabitants of this town when it is possible instead to do so with a competent companion.”

 

Sarek nodded, because she was correct, and yet…

 

“There is no other of whom I could make this request. Will you not allow me to accompany you? For the sake of your bonded, whom you say I so resemble, if for no other reason?” For a moment her face softens, and when she looks up at him she seems almost…sad. “You loved her, did you not?”

 

For long seconds Sarek was speechless with shock. Vulcans did not speak of such things.

 

T’amana’s expression shuttered closed.

 

“Or, perhaps you did not. Forgive my question—it was impertinent.” Once again, she was  the perfect image of Vulcan imperturbability. It…was far more distressing than logic should allow; strong emotional control and healthy shields were positive markers of well being. He should not be thinking no…not like this, go back to the other…  Sarek made a gruff noise.

 

“In searching, what one overlooks another may find. It would be logical to accept your assistance in this matter,” he said, unable to look up at her as he walked away. But as he turned back towards the street, he could hear the muffled sound of her footsteps following after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...yes, I am assuming that Sarek spent his first pon farr with that Vulcan princess who became Sybok's mom.  >.>


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bowl-o-rama through the Hanging Ghouls

It was mere coincidence that he walked close enough to the building to hear the voices inside; they’d chosen a path more or less at random, avoiding the roads where lumbering figures could almost be seen through the fog—the sound of static that his padd insisted on playing when they grew near truly was distracting—and moving generally towards the center of the town.  In the alleyway, the voices were indistinct, muffled by the layer of brick, but they were enough to alert Sarek to the presence of sentient beings. Even if it were not Amanda, it was possible there might be someone who could give him information on her whereabouts.  Sarek walked more quickly, rounded the corner of the building onto a main road.

 

The building had a very large neon sign—half-lit and blinking in the gloom—that read “Pete’s Bowl-o-Rama”, and a blue-lit star that Sarek did not know the significance of. Beneath the sign, there was a grimy window in front of a bench, which Sarek attempted to peer through without a great deal of success. The glass was, however, thin enough to let him hear the conversation clearly, and after a moment he was able to make out the haze forms of two men, one seated straight-backed on a barstool and the other sitting in a loose sprawl on the tabletop, both occasionally drinking something out of dark glass bottles; he believed the later to be the young man he’d met earlier, though he couldn’t determine the identity of the other.

 

“So, what’d you do? Arson? Assault? Murder?” The blond man at least did not sound so drunk now as he had earlier. The other figure shook his head.

 

“Of course not. I merely…there was nothing left. Everyone…everything I had ever loved was simply _gone_. We revenged them, so their ghosts could rest, and once even that was gone there was nothing left, and this is where I ended up.” Sarek had a difficult time placing the second voice; thought from his words that perhaps there was another Vulcan here, though the accent did not seem quite right.

 

“You ran,” the blond man said, and the other made an angry gesture with his bottle. “If whatever you did was so horrible, though, why didn’t you just apologize? Make a new life somewhere…?” He took a long pull of his drink.  “Guess I shouldn’t talk though—I run away plenty, myself.”

 

The other man let out a dry laugh. “That is entirely out of the question. What we did was right—they deserved our vengeance, it was no more than what they had done to us. But you can’t think anyone in your precious federation would listen to us.” Someone not from a federation world, Sarek thought, and then cursed under his breath. Of course it was the Romulan. Somehow, he would have to find enough time to meditate; the fury was becoming more and more difficult to restrain.  “No one will ever forgive me.”

 

Sarek stepped back from the window, turned to where T’amana was regarding the dingy exterior of the building with distaste. Early in their courtship, Amanda had all but dragged him into the most unlikely establishments imaginable—“holes-in-the-wall” she’d called them, rather illogically—for what inevitably turned out to be an excellent meal, or a fascinating exhibit of art, or a truly stunning collection of rare books. Her disregard of appearances when her curiosity took hold of her was one of the qualities in her which had first caught his attention. T’amana raised an eyebrow at him, and Sarek shook his head mildly and reached for the door.

 

“I believe I shall decline to enter this…establishment.” Her lip curled slightly, perfectly patrician. “The absurdities of human recreational pursuits are of no interest to me.”

 

Sarek was aware of a tendril of frustration—likely left over from his earlier anger—and deliberately set it aside. “I hardly intend to engage in play. I merely wish to discuss matters with an individual inside.”

 

T’amana raised her chin, impassive and utterly uncooperative. “I shall await you here,” she insisted, and Sarek declined to waste the energy it would require to argue with her. He simply nodded, and pulled the door closed behind him.  Through the window, the blond man tensed and stood up off the table.

 

Sarek had to pass through the room with the front desk and another, smaller room that appeared to be set aside for renting and changing ones shoes. When he reached the main room, however, the Romulan was alone.

 

“Ôrĕn,” he acknowledged, coldly. The Romulan frowned at him and did not stand. Sarek pushed back the frustration and concern, did not allow himself to wonder what this criminal might have done to the other man. “You are alone, here?”

 

The Romulan was silent just long enough for Sarek to feel the insult of it, and then he spoke. “I am as you see.”

 

Sarek did not curse the entire Romulan race and their damnable circumlocutions. He did not, but he was not, quite frankly, certain what he _would_ have said if the child-sized green bowling ball had not come rolling towards them across the wooden floor. They both looked up, surprised, to the exit where the child, Jimmy, was waving at them on his way out. Sarek started.

 

“Wait!” he shouted, horrified, and felt his hands clench into fists. He turned quickly to the Romulan, demanded “We have to pursue him.”

 

The Romulan stared at him. “Jim? But why…?”

 

The urge to simply shake the man until he showed some signs of basic decency was nearly overwhelming, and Sarek bit out, “Because he is a child, this town is host to numbers of violent and dangerous beings, and _he could be killed_?”

 

The Romulan leaned back against the table with his drink, seemed to enjoy Sarek’s distress. “He said he was fine by himself, that the only one he could trust was him,” he claimed. A shy smile brought out by a handful of vaguely kind words flashed in Sarek’s mind’s eye, and he found he was simply out of patience for this contemptible individual. He turned on his heel and ran, not trusting himself to say another word.

 

T’amana was gone when he had made his way outside. He banged his fist against the brick of the wall, ignoring the way it crumbled under his hand, and then made himself stop, breathe deeply, and let the emotions go. He opened his eyes and started to jog in the direction Jimmy had seemed to be headed. He only got to the end of the building, however, before T’amana came walking back from a side-street.

 

“You left,” he observed. “Did you, perhaps, see a young human boy pass this way?” T’amana actually looked rather upset; Sarek belated noticed she was out of breath.

 

“I did, but he eluded me, and I was unable to convince him to stop,” she confirmed. “I assume you intend to pursue him?” Amanda had given him that look the day Spock had been suspended from the educational facility he attended for an assault on a fellow student: solemn, and completely certain he was going to do what was right.

 

He nodded, and together they began to walk down the way T’amana had come.

 

It was remarkably difficult to follow the child; the entirety of the town was in such disrepair that a single overturned trash receptacle or a door left open could just as easily be a sign of his passing as not. Still, there were enough clues, enough glimpses of Jimmy at the ends of roads that Sarek was reasonably certain they were on the right path. Even so, if it had not been for T’amana’s presence, he would certainly not have found the child; he had been turned entirely the wrong direction, looking down an alleyway at a small figure that turned out to be another of the creatures when T’amana finally exclaimed, “There!” and pointed towards the front steps of a healing facility.

 

The two of them ran, eyes fixed on the boy as he slipped through the doorway to the building. The hospital was, in terran fashion, a large complex of private and public rooms, mostly covered with white tile now gone yellowish with grime and alternately blackened and blinding as the fluorescent lights flickered. Sarek had always found terran hospitals rather disturbing, very different from the dark solitude and living rock of the mountain retreats the Vulcan priestess-healers maintained. He supposed, of course, that one’s reaction depended to a great extent on what one was used to: he recalled Amanda’s distress at being left alone with the healers during Spock’s birth, how angry she had been that he had not after all come to be with her even if it was not, truly, a proper thing to do. ‘I should have been there,’ he remembered himself agreeing.

 

“I do not believe the child to be in the immediate surroundings any longer,” T’amana observed, breaking him out of his reminiscing. “Shall we attempt a search room-by-room?”

 

Sarek nodded, but they found no sign of Jimmy in any of the rooms on the first floor. On the second floor of the hospital there were more of the monsters, torn flesh swaying from their hips as they stumbled in and out of the light. The bone-horns dripped red blood in little paths along the hallways as they went, but they did not seem to pay any attention to Sarek or T’amana. For the moment.

 

They were half-way across a large open room—some sort of common area, Sarek assumed—on the second floor when Sarek paused, turned to ask T’amana whether she had made a note of the building’s layout only to find that she was gone. Sarek slowly turned on himself, but no—he was clearly the only one in the room, and of T’amana there was no sign.

 

“T’amana!” he called, listened to it echo strangely against the tile. He knew she had followed him into this room, had heard her enter, carefully shut the heavy double-door behind her. Neither could she have exited without his knowledge; the doors creaked badly, and closed with a sonorous thud. It was…distinctly unsettling, but his options for rational response were extremely limited; it seemed, for the moment, that the best he could do would be to simply accept he now had three persons for whom he must search, and continue as well as he might. He set aside the impulse to break something, and opened the door to the stairwell.

 

 The third floor held mostly corridors full of doors to locked rooms, and Sarek was about to give up, search the lower levels again in case T’amana or the child might be there instead when the last door in the hall twisted open under his hand. He paused in the doorway, listening to the tuneless humming coming from the far side of the room. The two wheeled beds had been dragged sideways into the middle of the room, obscuring his view, but he thought he might recognize the voice…

 

And indeed, the child Jimmy was curled up on the floor, engaged in some sort of play involving tiny humanoid figures dressed as Starfleet officers. “Jimmy?” he called, quietly, and tried not to frown when the child flinched visibly before looking up at him. Sarek cast about for something to say to the child, to explain why he was here and set the child at ease. “Were you able to locate the members of your family?” he asked, finally.

 

The boy looked at his hands, again displaying human signs of distress. “Not yet. They’re not _anywhere_.” The child was quiet for a moment, and then mumbled, “I don’t think they want me to find them.”

 

Sarek thought about that for a moment. “It is certainly true,” he admitted, “that there are individuals known to abandon children, when parenthood presents difficulties they cannot or will not accept.” Jimmy’s face slammed closed, and Sarek was abruptly aware of a certain bitter regret for the spark of empathy, of _understanding_ in the back of his mind that the bond with Amanda had allowed him. However ill-equipped he had considered himself to be in dealing with Spock’s deep emotionalism, interacting with this volatile, fully-human child was worse. Jimmy climbed to his feet, and Sarek opened his mouth again, choosing his words with care. “And yet, I find it remarkably pleasing that I have found you, at this time.”

 

The child looked up at him, clearly conflicted, and Sarek sighed. “Come, will you consent to accompany me in this search? This town, as you have said, is filled with dangers, and not a place any child deserves to be left unattended.” Jimmy climbed over the bed, eyes fixed distrustfully on Sarek, and came to stand beside him. “I confess I am shocked that you have received no injuries.”

 

Jimmy followed him out into the corridor, head cocked to one side. “Why should I?”

 

Sarek weighed the situation and decided to permit himself a tiny smile. “Why indeed? Clearly you are just as resilient as my own son was at your age.” He remembered Spock’s proud face when he’d survived the Kas-whan, the tiny straight shoulders; and then abruptly the little form, savaged and sun-burned and green with I-chaya’s blood and his own alike. He swallowed and sped his pace.

 

Quickly, however, he was stopped by the pressure of a small hand tugging at the hem of his one remaining sleeve. “Wait!” Jimmy was demanding, face tight and determined. “There’s something I have to get.”

 

At the far end of the room, one of the creatures bound in their own flesh staggered towards them. “I believe it would be prudent to retrieve it at a later time, if that were possible,” Sarek said, not fully turning away from the monster. Jim held onto the cloth and leaned back until it was the only thing allowing him to retain his balance.

 

“It’s really important!” he insisted, and Sarek knelt.

 

“If you must do this, then you must, and I will help you.” Jimmy winced like the words hurt him, and wavered a moment before nodding.

 

“I really gotta do this,” the child affirmed, still looking disturbingly as though he might begin to cry. “I won’t be safe if I don’t.” And there was nothing Sarek could say to that, so he allowed himself to be pulled back in the direction they had come. Eventually, Jimmy paused in front of a door that Sarek thought had been locked earlier. “It’s in here.”

 

Sarek gave him a questioning stare, and then tried the door. It opened, but the lights were dim and Sarek could barely see, even holding up his padd so that the light from its display fell on the room.  “Here?” he inquired. “Are you certain?”

 

Jimmy had stopped in the doorway, curled fearfully around the frame. “Yeah—it’s further back, there in the desk.” He pointed, and Sarek could just make out the form of a large metal writing-table against the back wall. Cautiously, he stepped further into the room. Without warning, however, the door slammed shut behind him, the click of the key turning echoing in the little room.

 

“Jimmy! What are you doing?” Sarek leaned against the metal door, trying without success to force it back open. In the shadows, a sickly flapping of lips caught the shaft of light from where his padd lay on the floor. “Open the door!”

 

The voice from the other side of the door was muffled, hitching oddly. “I can’t. If I trust you, you’ll just hurt me. You hurt Spock, and Miss Amanda. You shouldn’t have tried to be nice to me—“ and now the voice rose very nearly to a shriek. “You can’t trick me!”

 

On the far side of the room, creatures trapped in some sort of metal cage swung down from the ceiling, swaying sickly in his direction. They kicked their hanging feet like children on swings.

 

“Jimmy!” he tried, sternly. “This is entirely unacceptable behavior and you will release the lock on this door immediately!” One of the caged monsters had gotten close enough that the edge of the bar smacked into his temple on the upswing, and Sarek ducked.

 

“See?!” the child yelled right back at him. “You’re yelling! Just like Frank! I told you you’d regret trying to trick me! Go die!”

 

The sound of small running feet echoed in the hall outside, and Sarek cursed under his breath. He drew his phaser, steeled himself to shoot the creatures; he had learned they could not be reasoned with, were likely not fully sentient and possibly not even fully alive, but the violence still struck him as morally inexcusable.

 

One of the creatures swung towards him again, and Sarek got off two particle bursts in quick succession. Its toes curled, feet arching painfully and ankles twitching.

 

Sarek turned and took aim at the other; he shot it once, grazed its calf, and tried again. Just as the disintegrating beam shot through the thing’s chest, however, a pair of skinny feet hooked over his shoulders, bony knees digging into his aortal artery and crushing closed his trachea. He leaned all of his weight forward, kicking out his arms and legs in an attempt to disrupt the thing’s hold. For long seconds, the thing held on, squeezing his throat until black spots danced in his vision. When it finally dropped him, he was so dizzy he stumbled to the ground in a heap, half-curled to roll and half unable to manage the maneuver.

 

Shaky, he attempted to shoot at the monster, missed, tried again. He had to use one hand to keep himself upright, blinked quickly to attempt to clear his vision even though he still couldn’t seem to get enough breath. He tried one more shot, one handed and half blind, and this time, he managed to hit the creature, one clean shot through the head that made its whole body clench up in some horrible tangle inside the bars.

 

Sarek could only hope no others made an appearance though, because that was when his shallow hold on consciousness gave out.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> UST and the Long Hallway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short chapter, but I wanted to post it now because I have a term paper and probably won't be able to get back to this soon.

When Sarek awoke, he found himself in some sort of small courtyard, lying on a patch of dead grass. A bird—likely some species of Corvidae—called from somewhere in the rafters above. Three sides of the enclosure were blank concrete, but one held a pair of large double-doors. Inside, the healing facility was even darker and dingier than before. Even though the day had been overcast and only weak light had marked it, the differences now that night was falling were remarkable. There was a generalized sense of menace that Sarek found he could neither place nor dismiss.

 

Sarek was not certain how he had come to this location; he believed he was on some part of the facility’s first floor, but there did not seem to be any connection to the parts of that level he had investigated previously. Neither could he find any method of ascending to the other levels. Twice, horned women had attacked him, clawing at him lewdly with their hands and scraping at him with the bone protrusions. One had gouged a long cut down the side of his face before he had managed to… defend himself. No, he thought, to murder her; violence in self-defense was still violence, and he would not hide the truth behind gentle amphiogisms.

 

He wandered the halls more or less at random; he did not know the location of Jimmy, of T’amana, or of his bonded, he was subject to a number of small injuries (as he had not, a part of him recalled, when his planet had died. So much destruction, and he had not so much as a bruise), and he had not slept in over sixty-two point one seven hours, some thirteen of which had been spent fighting his way through this horrific place. A Vulcan could, of course, sustain himself without need for food or rest for much longer periods of time if it should prove necessary—as clearly it was, here—but it pulled at him nevertheless. It was becoming rather difficult to think clearly, and his emotional control was severely compromised.

 

Which was likely the reason why, when he saw his wife’s lithe figure in the doorway, back turned to him and leaning slightly against the frame, his first reaction was to reach out his hand and kiss her. For one moment, her fingers curled, slid in between his own to squeeze gently, and Sarek knew such peace that he almost envied humans their tear ducts. There were times, he thought, when the ability to cry was a true blessing. “Amanda,” he whispered against her hair.

 

But then she turned, and the relief died in his chest. The woman raised one perfectly arched eyebrow at him. “Sarek?”

 

“T’amana,” he acknowledged. Keeping his face and voice empty of emotion was suddenly extremely easy; Sarek felt as though something vital inside of him had been hollowed out and left for dead. “Once again, I must express apologies for my confusion. I had thought you were…”

 

T’amana’s lips thinned. “I know very well who you thought I was, Ambassador.”

 

Sarek was distantly aware of an emotion coiling around the base of his spine that seemed something like guilt would, if he could feel it properly. “I am pleased to find you unharmed, madam,” he assured her, and T’amana’s face contorted. Under the expression of bewildered rage, she looked more like his Amanda than ever.

 

“Pleased? That is most strange, since I see no evidence of this response,” she whispered, grinding each word between gritted teeth. “Are you even aware of what happened to me? I was…” Something in her eyes seemed to shatter. “What did you not try to save me? Is my life of less value than a dead woman’s?” She stared at him for a long moment where Sarek did not know how to answer. “I. Was. Afraid,” she spit out. “But that signifies nothing to you, does it?”

 

Sarek was too shocked at her confession of fear to make a reply. “I… of course it does,” he stammers after several seconds.

 

T’amana looked up at him, her expressionless face somehow radiating misery. “Then stay with me. Do not escape on your own and abandon me!”

 

Shame, Sarek recognized; that was the emotion he felt. He carefully noted it, and turned his attention back to T’amana. “I shall make every attempt not to be parted from you again,” he promised, and T’amana closed her eyes. Sarek felt the lightest possible brush of fingertips against his own, but before he could respond, T’amana had turned away.

 

“I understand,” she said, composing herself. “And the child? Were you able to locate him?”

 

Sarek shook his head. “Negative. I briefly made contact with him, but he chose not to remain in my company. I do not believe he considers me—or many people at all—safe companions.”

 

T’amana nodded. “That may be. And yet, he is a child, and it is singularly illogical for adults to allow the young of a sentient species to experience harm through their inaction.” She frowned, delicately lowering her eyebrows into an expression of concentration. “There are none but we who are available to see to his well-being. We shall have to continue searching for him, and discuss his unwillingness to trust us at such a time as we are able to locate him,” she finally decided, looking small and fierce and perfect. Amanda had looked just like this, going before the High Council to argue for aid to be sent to the survivors of Tarsus IV. Sarek swallowed.

 

“I recognize your logic,” he approved formally. Together, they descended a staircase, as it’s door was the only remaining that Sarek had neither explored nor found to be locked. Skinless, legless things in wheelchairs screeched through the hallways on this lower level, half-seen in the dark. The chalky sound of the rusted wheels echoed against the tile, doubling back on itself until you could never tell how many or how close they might be. Several times, Sarek walked the five or six steps to the next turning in the convoluted walkways only to find one blocking his path, grinning at him with rotted teeth.

 

In one of the rooms, they found a first aid kit in a red backpack—apparently to be used in case of fire or other emergency. Sarek considered the morality of making use of it for a short time, but eventually decided that it was unlikely that the current inhabitants of the hospital would have a great deal of use for the supplies. He leaned against a rusty desk, opened the little box and made a mental note to repay the hospital if it proved possible in the future. There was little enough inside the box in any case; T’amana tore open a single-use sanitary package of antiseptic wipes and began to clean off the scrape on his face. His skin was still irritated sufficiently from the chemical burns that the treatment involved more stinging than he would have liked, but the pain was hardly so great that it warranted a reaction.

 

Sarek unbuttoned his tunic to the waist, shrugging it down to rest at the crook of his elbows. Awkwardly, he attempted to assess the damage on his shoulder, until T’amana placed a hand over his. Sarek swallowed a small noise of surprise, noted that the damage to his throat was also still present. Likely there was some amount of bruising, but at the moment he could not tell.

 

Rather than a kiss as he’d first thought, though, T’amana had merely been handing him a sterile pad, and the tape with which to apply it. Sarek recognized the logic of her suggestion and reached up left-handed to fix it to his cheek, allowing T’amana to disinfect his shoulder instead. This wound was deeper, and bits of dirt and gravel had stuck to it during his fight which were rather painful to remove. Once it was clean, he tilted his neck away from her and held still, allowing her to wrap his shoulder in the long clean bandages. She carefully tied off the ends, and then hesitated, fingers trailing over the little hollow between his deltoid and pectoralis major. Wordlessly, he raised he free hand to her chin, tilting her head just enough to check for injuries to her face or neck. T’amana went completely still. One-handed, Sarek pulled open a third antiseptic wipe, and drew it down the light scrape that followed her superior omohyoid muscle, dipping beneath her high collar, even though the wound was truthfully quite minor. He could feel her throat work beneath his fingers as she swallowed.

 

Sarek abruptly became aware of how close they’d gotten, T’amana pressed almost against his chest, fingers still barely tracing his clavicle. He cleared his throat and stood, putting the medicinal supplies back into the box to avoid meeting her eyes. “We should continue with our search,” he told T’amana, telling himself that the roughness in his voice was surely from the tracheal damage. T’amana said nothing, but when he went to the door once again, she followed behind him.

 

Further portions of this basement-level were equally labyrinthine. There were only rarely doors, but instead seemingly endless corridors that writhed like a thing in pain and doubled back on themselves until Sarek was certain that members of most species would have become hopelessly lost. Eventually though, they came to a large metal door, directly at the end of a narrow hallway. He glanced at T’amana, and when she nodded, pulled open the door. There was only more hallway on the other side, and he let the heavy door slam shut behind them of its own weight. He took a few steps, frowning at the black concrete walls.

 

And then, behind him, T’amana screamed. The helmet-creature was no more than one point two meters behind her, reaching for her. Sarek had a brief flash of the thing dragging the corpse of the violated priestess-monster, and reached for T’amana’s hand, unable to think, but only to move, sprinting as fast as he was able while T’amana stumbled behind him. There was no possibility of evasion in so small a space, no offense he could offer the demon, no defense—only flight, and the grating metallic sound of the thing’s knife dragging along the floor behind them set something primal, deep in Sarek’s animal brain in a panic. T’amana began to slip, and he pulled her back to her feet; the creature closed on them, the twisting of the hallway curbing their speed; he could only barely hear T’amana’s labored breathing over his own. Finally, they turned a corner to find a long section of straight hallway, and what looked like a door of some kind at its end. The hope gave them both a burst of energy that they had previously lacked, and they raced towards the end of the hallway, somehow still only seconds ahead of the creature. As they grew closer, Sarek could see that the opening was an elevator, inexplicably standing open, until very suddenly it began to close. Sarek was aware of a wave of desperation, let go of T’amana’s hand to wedge himself between the doors. With the elevator unable to leave to a different floor, they might still retain some chance, of survival at the very least, and Sarek bent his considerable strength to pushing the doors further open. T’amana reached him, pressed herself against the heavy metal doors and screamed his name, eyes bright with terror.

 

“Sarek!  Help me!” Sarek could see the glimmering tracks of tears incongruous on her cheeks, and behind her the closing form of the pyramid-helmed man. “Sarek!”

 

Sarek pushed harder, straining his muscles until the damage was of some consideration, without effect, and then the thing was _there_ , it was grasping T’amana’s hip and pulling at her, knife raising slowly and T’amana thrust one arm through the bare opening, illogically reaching for Sarek even though he was too far to help her, could not save her—can’t ever…She screamed his name one more time, and Sarek could feel his hands start to bleed from where the metal edges of the doors were biting into his palms. There was nothing he could do but watch as the knife sliced through muscles and vertebrae, T’amana’s blood pooling green at his feet. Her hand dropped.

 

Sarek stared for a long moment, boneless, before the pressure from the metal doors forced him to let go. T’amana had died, horrifically, before his eyes and he had done _nothing_. T’amana had died; the child, Jim, had disappeared, might even now be being tormented by the creatures. “Amanda,” he whispered to himself, slumping broken onto the dirty floor of the elevator. Slowly it pinged as he passed each floor. But Amanda had even herself said that she did not know whether she wanted him to find her; perhaps it would be better if he did not, rather than fail her a second time. And yet, if he did not, what else was there?

 

The elevator doors slid open with a chime, and across the lobby, the main doors of the hospital opened into the street.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Down the hole

The Dialects of Surak, Sarek had learned as a child, taught that despair was selfishness and base emotionalism; that service to one’s clan and community—the good of the many—was the highest moral good. The possibility of failing Amanda was not a logical justification for abandoning the attempt, he knew. So long as the possibility remained that she required his assistance, there existed a moral imperative to render it.

Sarek pushed himself to his feet, leaning heavily on the elevator’s wall, and stumbled into the lobby.

Like the rest of the hospital, the lobby had grown darker than it had previously been, and several times Sarek almost fell, tripping over bits of debris scattered like shrapnel across the floor. He was aware, vaguely, that his internal processes were not functioning optimally, that he should adjust his heart rate and increase the serotonin output in his brain, but somehow couldn’t summon the focus to do so.

In the dim shaft of light coming from the open doors, Sarek caught sight of a dusty yellowed envelope—laying discarded on the floor—which had, curiously, his name in high Vulcan script written neatly across the front. He found it…disorienting in the extreme, bent to pick it up. “He who is not bold enough to be stared at from across the abyss is not bold enough to stare into it himself,” Sarek read. “The truth can only be learned by marching forward.”

The paper was old, cracked off in pieces at the edges if he did not hold it with sufficient care. How long could it have been sitting here? Sarek had only known he was going to be in this municipality for one point three seven five days, and had not expected to enter a healing facility at all, and yet this letter looked at least ten years old.

He continued. “Though perhaps you are a fool to stare: the truth usually betrays people. A part of that abyss is in the old society. But I fled, and the museum was sealed as well. Now no one dares approach that place, except for her. If you still do not wish to stop, Sarek of Vulcan, I pray the Lord have mercy on your eternal soul.”

Sarek stared at the crumbling sheet of paper, unable to decide what to make of it. Could it be the result of that young man, or the Romulan playing some kind of trick? Those races were certainly known for baffling behavior from time to time, and yet… Perhaps there were others in this town whom he had not yet encountered. Might they not, as this note seemed to imply, have some knowledge of Amanda’s whereabouts or status?

Sarek frowned to himself and called up the digital map of the town he had been given. Did he not recall a museum of some sort, towards the north of the town? Quickly he scanned the two-dimensional representation. Ah—indeed, the ‘Silent Hill Historical Society’. Some small display of trinkets and plaques no doubt; without the aid of first-hand katric knowledge, humans of many societies put a great deal of emphasis on such things. “The truth can only be learned by marching forward,” he murmured to himself.

Very well then; this Historical Society was as valid a place to direct his search as any other, at the moment. He checked the map again, made certain he had correctly memorized the street names and proper path among them before he put the padd back into sleep-mode and tucked it away.

Outside, the streets had grown quite dark, and the fog, which had been a thin threatening mist during the afternoon, had returned in strength. Sarek could see barely one point two five meters in front of him—likely even a human (even Amanda, he didn’t think) would not be able to make out a great deal more. It was also quite cold; San Francisco was often rather…bracing, in temperature, but this was the chill of a New England fog, a temperature of no more than two hundred and seventy-eight degrees, standard Kelvin. He tugged the wrap of his over-tunic higher against his neck and quickened his pace, attempting to compensate for the cold his torn clothing could not protect him from by metabolic processes.

The lack of visibility lent the journey a surreal quality, and several times Sarek came upon streets that should have been familiar, traveled only hours before, that were instead twisting and strange. Once he came upon a chain-link fence stretching across an alley, draped over with white construction-plastic. Upon it, near the metal gate, had been scrawled in what Sarek sincerely hoped to be red paint, “The door that wakes in darkness, opening into nightmares.” It did not appear to be so to Sarek, who saw instead a simple metal gate opening only into more alley, but he supposed it might be a quotation of some kind, poetry of the gothic mode some humans still favored. He was not particularly conversant with the movement; it was possible he was simply missing the referent for this sign. He dismissed it from his thoughts.

The bizarre unreality of the journey, however, persisted. He turned down another street—which his mental map insisted should be Rendell Street and the signpost labeled Sanders Street—he caught sight of a drinking establishment with windows papered over with a multitude of paper clippings from ancient print newspapers. On the glass, the same red paint proclaimed that “there was a hole here. It’s gone now.” Sarek did not see what possible use this information could be to anyone, nor how a perfectly whole pane of glass could be said to have contained a hole at some previous time. It was even more frustratingly illogical than most human statements. He resolved not to consider it further, opened his padd and called up his map once again.

As he’d recalled, Sanders Street was located on the opposite side of town from where he had believed himself to be. He would have to backtrack, cross down Neeley Street and from there follow Saul Street back to his intended destination. He was thoroughly disoriented; the heavy fog effectively prevented him from examining any potential landmarks, and the fact that he had no idea how it was possible for him to have reached this location precluded simply determining his orientation from the map. As such, he simply picked a direction; he would have to look at the street sign where the roads crossed.

Of course, it was the incorrect direction to have chosen. He fought off a skin-bound monster and another of the horned women before he could make out the little green sign for Lindsey Street perched at the street-corner. Sarek was glad at least to know which direction he was traveling, turned and made his way back to the street. Just before he reached the opposite crossroads (reassuringly labeled in accordance to his mental map) the papered-over windows of the building on the corner caught his eye. Somehow, in the minutes he had spent walking to the end of the street and back, someone had managed to thoroughly remove the paint previously clinging to the glass and replace its message with another. “If you really want to see Amanda,” it now read, “you should just DIE. But you might be heading to a different place than she, Ambassador.” Sarek could not fathom who could possibly be leaving him such cryptic and vaguely threatening messages; the complexities of human pranks had always escaped him, but he found this example to be particularly distressing. Without passing closer, Sarek crossed onto Neeley street.

Midway along Carroll Street—in fact, just past the hospital where he’d begun this trek—there was a pile of debris blocking the road. Sarek had the thoroughly illogical impression that the town itself was deliberately, as Amanda would very occasionally have put it, “fucking with him”. Sarek acknowledged that the impression was quite impossible, and drew his phaser. Spending excess time in an attempt to navigate and travel an alternate route when a more direct one presented itself was clearly illogical. It was the work of only moments however to disintegrate the obstruction, and he passed through the cut-off area with satisfaction at the efficiency of his chosen path.

The Silent Hill Historical Society was a squat brown building huddled along the shore of the lake. The doors were brassy and warped, and the inside was papered in a pattern and color that was an offense to every principle of aesthetics ever established by any species. Dark brown and red stains covered the dirty carpet. Sarek walked past the abandoned curator’s desk and crossed into the back room littered with torn paintings and broken glass. When he turned, he was distracted from it entirely; the far wall bore a charred hole nearly the height of a man, blasted from the inside so that bits of burned wood and flakes of blackened paper littered the carpet in front of it. Beyond the hole, a staircase extended, though the weak light in the room did not reach far enough for him to tell its length. There were clear signs of someone having entered it very recently—the floor in front of the opening was the only place he could see devoid of dust. It was clear which way he must go, and so Sarek squared his shoulders and began to descend.

And descend.

And descend.

Sarek estimated he had traveled a diagonal distance of two hundred and twenty seven point eight eight meters at the time when he finally reached the landing. This distance was considerably in excess of typical terran architectural choices; humans were not, generally speaking, a species that greatly enjoyed subterranean living. The facility in which Sarek found himself was as dilapidated as the rest of the town, water-stained and filthy; he could not immediately ascertain what purpose it might serve. The bare concrete walls and metallic piping lent little clue. Cautiously, he proceeded down a narrow hall. Elsewhere in the compound, he could hear the screeching wheels of the legless demons.

Eventually, he opened the single door at the end of a long hallway to find a ‘dead end’: a room no more than one point one two meters square. There were openings in the wall, covered with a heavy lattice of iron—which he could likely have removed, except that it was so patently obvious that no one else could have passed that way that the idea seemed to be without merit. The only other opening was the gaping fissure in the room’s floor. No light shone into that blackness. No sound penetrated its depth.

Sarek became very abruptly aware of an inexplicable and intense impulse to jump.

In the barbarian past of his people, in Sarek’s ancestral territories, there had been a myth—the legend of T’sala and Tamar—which his mother had often told him when he had been very young. The warrior Tamar had died in battle, defending his clan—slaying his enemy even as he was slain. When his Bonded, T’sala, had felt him die, she had been so consumed by grief that she had withdrawn into her own mind, following the shredded remnants of their bond down a deep fissure and into the Waters of the Dead. There, she had been bidden to fight three adversaries: the shade of the enemy who had killed her bondmate, a simulacrum the death goddess Reah brought forth out of a mirror in T’sala’s own image, and finally a dark twin of her own beloved. When she had defeated all three, Reah had given up Tamar’s katra and allowed T’sala to return with it to the land of the living, where she had performed the very first Fal-tor-Pan.

His mother had presented it as an allegorical lesson in the value of loyalty in pre-Awakening Vulcan culture, but Sarek had always felt a fascination with the myth that he still could not fully explain. The darkness in that stone opening called to him in much the same way, bypassing conscious understanding entirely; and before he could even fully consider his options Sarek felt himself take the two steps required to send him tumbling down into its depths.

Sarek fell for over five point one nine seconds, and then was plunged into extremely cold water. The shock of it had caused Sarek to gasp reflexively, so that he swallowed a great deal of foul-tasting water and choked. It was deeply unpleasant, and it took Sarek much longer than it should have to sort himself out, coughing wetly until he could breathe again. Eventually, he regained his equilibrium and stood, squinting into the darkness to try to make out where he was.

The padd had gone dark—possibly water had gotten into its circuitry, or else it had been damaged in the fall, Sarek could not be sure. He experienced a moment of frustration—a human like Amanda would have likely been able to see, if not precisely clearly, at least well enough in the little light that filtered down from the top of the chasm, but Sarek could not see anything at all. He put out a hand and groped until he felt the rough, lichen-slick texture of a stone wall. Slowly, he followed its curve through the hip-deep water, mentally calculating its projected circumference based on the surface’s extrinsic curvature. The space was smaller even than he had expected, only point eight four one meters across, and he finished his exploration with distressing quickness. Once again, he walked the short circle, but even so he could not feel evidence of any opening.

Slowly, he became aware of a heavy weight of fear settling low in his abdomen.

What had he been thinking? It was beyond unacceptable for an adult Vulcan to act on unthinking impulse in the way he had—he might well have killed himself doing something so damnably foolish, and it was not at all out of the question that he might still be trapped at the bottom of this pit until wounds or starvation killed him. Sarek bit back the panic and rage that clawed at the back of this throat, reached out a hand to again trace the slime-covered brick of the walls, looking for a ladder, a grate, even a drain--some method of egress. It was abundantly clear he could not simply climb the walls back out of this hole—the brick was uneven enough to provide handholds, but far too slick to permit a secure grip. The wall was utterly solid, all around him. Obviously, no one could have passed this way, or else they would surely still be here. And while he remained trapped here, rotting in a thoroughly human water-hell, those he was bound to protect, those he…he loved, were suffering, in danger, and he could do _nothing_. Nearly choking on helpless fury, Sarek drew back and punched the wall near his head. He could feel the skin of his knuckles splitting against the coarse stone, but could also feel the stone splitting in turn, showering in chunks and in powder down into the murky water.

Beyond the jagged hole, Sarek could just barely make out the faint sheen of metal. Hope stabbed through his chest, and Sarek quickly tore another strip from the ragged edge of his tunic to protect his hand, tearing down more and more of the crumbling brick. After a few seconds of this work, Sarek had to stop, leaning back against the far side of the wall to pant and rest his arm, but enough of the brick had been cleared away to reveal a full-sized iron door, bolted into the wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've ever played any kind of RPG at all, you cannot tell me you've never wanted to just hack apart one of those ridiculous blockages that prevent you from going certain ways--like, oh, I can chop up buildings with my limits and all but freaking *fly*, but I am defeated by a mid-sized box. Guess I'd better go around. What? No. Sarek says fuck that shit.
> 
> ...I. Maaaaay have cackled like a loon, writing that bit. <3 I admit nothing.


End file.
